Radio host Art Bell has died | Hacker News Reader

Radio host Art Bell has died

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125 pointseplanit55 comments

I grew up in the High Desert of California (around Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Barstow). I can't count how many times I was driving alone down the desert highways at night, not a single other car on the road, and Art Bell was the only thing on the radio. And he'd be interviewing people or talking about UFOs, aliens, ghosts, government conspiracies, or whatever else he thought would be great to spook people with at the time.

He made those lonely, dark night road trips into amazing experiences. No matter how rational you are, his show really could creep you out when you were driving alone at night on a long stretch of road. And not in a bad way. It felt like watching a really scary movie, one that cut kinda close to reality. And I like to think that's exactly what he was going for. His show was amazing.

George Noory is great too, but I've since moved from the desert and don't take long night road trips anymore.

Listening to Art and playing LoK all night with you guys were great times.

I never heard Art Bell before, but this post makes me feel like, in a small way, I got a little slice of it. The imagery of your comment really invokes the imagination and feelings. Thanks for sharing this experience!

Art Bell is a completely difference experience when you are driving through the middle of the Nevada or California desert. Its hard to explain to people who have never done it, but somehow on those long desolate drives, his radio show just made sense somehow.

I agree with this assessment and have had this experience a lot myself.

I am so grateful I got to experience this exact thing. And your description of the experience is spot on.

Art Bell's show was a bizarrely formative experience for me in my early teens. I lived in rural NC where we got very poor FM reception, but one AM station carried Coast to Coast AM, rebroadcasting the previous night before moving on to the live one (due to the time zone difference). Some nights I would listen through until dawn. There was such a striking sense of place he invoked in the show, and I would fall asleep dreaming of those roads I'd never seen.

I've still never been to the high desert, but one of my favorite things to do recently has been to play American Truck Simulator in Nevada or California while streaming his archives.

I know Art left and returned to radio several times over his career, and I held out hope he might do so yet again. I'm not one to really mourn the loss of celebrities, but the world is a little less mysterious and interesting without Art Bell.

>I grew up in the High Desert of California (around Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Barstow).

I used to live in Hesperia. I'm glad you escaped, too.

If some sub-culture doesn't do you in, the contaminated well water will. (a literal skin-head nazi race riot broke out in my High School during my time there -- I didn't even realize that h.s. riots existed until I found myself in the middle of one -- I felt I needed to qualify the sub-culture comment before it was taken offensively.)

With that said : You're absolutely right that the atmosphere/ambience of the High Desert is conducive to making Coast to Coast that much more believable -- and it simultaneously answers why no aliens have stuck around; i'd have turned around too if I landed somewhere in the middle of the Mojave.

That makes me sad because I loved Victorville while passing through. Seemed like a cute, if struggling, town with a lot to recommend it (like the best burgers in SoCal at... Atlas I want to say it was..?).

The experience sounds similar to my regular trips out to No-Wheres-ville central Illinois. I loved me a good ghost story episode on those nights driving through towns with double and triple digit populations.

Well, not exactly the towns, which were a block with a gas station, post office, and maybe a diner, but the dilapidated structures 1/4 mile past the towns. It was haunting to cruise down tree lined roads over rickety bridges, past rotting houses, and, my favorite, skirting places where infrastructure was easier to bypass than repair. If the road curved more than 20 degrees you could bet that it used to go straight, and if you looked off in that direction you'd see the shell of an old train station or supply store.

Art Bell and George Noory turned the most boring road trips into adventures. One night I'd be watching where my headlights hit the trees, expecting a chupacabra to leap onto the road, while others I'd have to 'play it cool' to avoid detection by the secret government testing facilities disguised as grain silos.

I think those haunting jaunts into the suspension of disbelief actually made me more tolerant of people with (harmless) strange beliefs. I got to feel the allure of bizarre, irrational beliefs for a few hours per week in an unfamiliar setting and then return to being a city-boy scientist in my everyday life.

I'd be sad, but I'm sure he's still around. He just had to go deep underground to avoid detection by the Illuminati or combat the Shadow People. Give em Hell, Art.

Art was the best thing to come out AM stations going talkie. And some of the stories, like the bottomless hole in central Washington, were hella fun.

Coast to Coast AM was my go-to bedtime routine as a kid. I'd get tucked in and then sneakily turn my am radio on and listen for hours.

It wasn't even that I liked the content so much, as I liked hearing Art talk to callers and how he was never condescending and just took their stories as though they were telling the truth. It really stuck with me then that he just had a crazy open mind - and I feel like that's had lifelong impacts.

It also really got me into radio and eventually I ran our college radio station - engineering and all - to try and recreate the excitement of live radio.

He had a great call with George Carlin that was really fun and interesting one time that is worth a listen.

> He had a great call with George Carlin that was really fun and interesting one time that is worth a listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckY-LmBItUc

two of my favorite speakers in a conversation with one another. Great.

Man, I also listened to him a lot as a kid going to bed. Some really fond memories there. When I got older I listened to him a lot on late night drives, which were quite common. I'm a very skeptical person by nature, but his show was amazing at spurring imagination, even of a skeptic.

Art Bell was a great interviewer. He entertained a number of guests on his show that he clearly did not believe fully. Instead of calling them crazy or brushing them aside, he drew out what he could. He entered their world and suspended his own and his listeners disbelief as a form of empathy and childlike wonder.

If more people could hold a meaningful conversation with people they think are crazy, like he could, people would understand each other better.

Counter-point:

He took clearly incredible people and introduced them to his audience, and in doing so, granted them a shred of legitimacy when they deserved none. His show caused vulnerable people to become entrenched in nonsensical conspiracy theories that even the hosts realized were crazy.

A simple rule for this is that if the claims are incredible, the proof needs to be incredible too.

His show added to the conversation bring fridge topics to the mainstream. Many guests brought light to government activities, military and unexplained activities. Forcing everyone to accept a white washed version of events by labeling everything else nonsensical is doing more of a disservice to the public. People need to be allowed to make up there own mind.

Thanks for the memories Art. Sleep well my friend.

In the 90's we would spend all night hacking and/or gaming while listening to Coast to Coast AM with Art. It was time to wrap it up after 6 AM when "America in the Morning with Jim Bohannon" came on.

I did the same. I remember spending a week trying to have an out of body experience per instructions from one of his shows. Rest well, Art.

It was such a wonderful experience discovering Coast to Coast as a kid. Many of the classic episodes are on youtube if anyone wants to check them out, I recommend the New Year's Eve prediction specials.

Of course, the whole conspiracy theory world seems a lot less innocent and fun now than it used to, but the old show is still fun to listen to sometimes.

I first came across Art in the mid 90s too. I commuted home in the black of midnight on back roads from Redmond (WA) out into the mountains. A good 40min at least but Art and C2C were there every night, filling my head with tales of wonder and intrigue from the Land of Nye.

Whenever I hear the term "remote sensing" used in a GIS context now, I can't help but think of Art's show where I first learned about "remote viewing"[1]. The latter doesn't seem to have caught-on, I guess scientists don't spend as much time with late-nite paranormal AM radio as the rest of us.

So long Art, thanks for all the memories, and be sure to let us know what you find out there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing

Goodness, I'd forgotten about America in the Morning. I was doing a consultant gig in San Diego in those days and it came on at 4am on KOGO. That was "going to work."

I love art bell, really sad about this :( There is so many things I could point to, but probably my most memorable interview he ever had was with "mel waters" about a bottomless hole in his back yard. Just a fantastic creepy mystery fiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA5KIRChve0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel%27s_Hole

In 2000, I spent five months in Boulder, Colorado, as part of my graduate work. I saw no reason to buy a TV, but I did buy an AM/FM radio, and Coast to Coast with Art Bell was all I had hoped for in strange American late night talk radio. Pyramids and faces on Mars, and people calling from phone booths fearing to be abducted by the Greys. Good times.

I remember reading about his large ham radio antenna setup in the desert. I heard him a few times on the bands over the years as well.

Sad to hear he's a SK, have fond memories of staying up to listen to coast to coast as a kid.

He talked ham radio in this interview with QSO Today. I thought it was pretty impressive that he was logging QSOs with California from Okinawa using bamboo poles wrapped in tinfoil.

https://www.qsotoday.com/podcasts/w6obb

There's some fascinating info about his home antennas here:

http://overunity.com/11449/free-energy-from-antenna/#.WtKViZ...

I did a lot of night driving in the 90's. Late night with a whole lot of hours left to go. The CDs I brought with me weren't keeping me awake, and I hadn't really go into audiobooks because that's just a lot more CDs. Flipping across the AM radio looking for anything, and then come across Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. It is insane and amazing and scary and should be the background sound on every scifi movie set in the present era. I never heard him say to any of his guest and insulting word, but you got to wonder, in the end, what he actually believed. I miss him like I miss the freedom of driving in the middle of the night and the cool things you find on the radio. Sometimes the chaos is fun.

19 years old John Titor will be sad tonight in his alternate universe.

The man rumored to be John Titor is currently in jail for drugging and raping at least four women: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/10/post_37...

John Titor was born in early 1998. Marlin Pohlman is in his 40s.

Project Archivist had an interview with possible John Titor author Joseph Matheny, and reposted a slightly annotated version when they moved servers:

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/project-archivist-project-a...

The whole thing is funny, except for the part that people are still arguing about it. Then it's hilarious.

In the words of K from Men in Black, "He didn't die. He just went home."

Thanks for keeping me awake on many late drives.

This is very sad news. I was entertained for many nights by his provocative guests and his superb interviews. Also, I hard pressed to think of a better voice for radio.

He will be missed by many.

I remember that some of the Coast to Coast episodes were quite technically interesting. There was at least one about home made radio telescopes (for SETI of course!).

Some were totally fun, as when the Russians penetrated Hell when they drilled a deep well (probably referring to the Kola Superdeep Borehole). "I will play the best tape someone sends me of the actual sounds of Hell that the Russians heard from their well."

https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/r-i-p-art-bell-1945-2...

I didn't know what he looked like until today, I assumed he was similar looking to Jeff Rense for some reason. Something bigger than Art just died, we live in a post radio world...

He was incredibly prolific during his prime. He did twenty-eight hours of live radio programming a week -- almost double the typical 15 hour weeks of national talkhosts. He did 5 hours of content Monday-Friday nights plus the 3-hour "Dreamland" show on Sundays.

A fan recorded a tribute song called "Ballad of the Grays" that can nowadays be found on Art's website:

http://midnightinthedesert.com/the-ballad-of-the-grays/

He was still doing weekends when I discovered Coast to Coast AM. As others have said, his ability to hold two opposing points of view in mind (i. this guy I'm talking to is crazy, ii. let's get weird) was wonderful. I enjoyed the way he played his interviews. On the west coast, it's a 10 pm show. To this day, I still like to put Coast to Coast AM on 1-hour sleep timer when I go to bed. Fun to hear all the crazy perspectives. Art Bell, you lived well.

What a sad coincidence - just yesterday I was watching a video about the "Area 51" caller he got on his radio show. Rest in peace.

For context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee3bld4lTG0.

Classic stuff.

Funny you say that, someone sent me the 9/11 time traveler guy yesterday.

The band Tool used part of this clip on its 2008 album 10,000 Days, IIRC right before or after "Faaip De Oiad" ... it was intense.

As a kid, I remember listening to him regularly after bedtime hours. I don't remember the content too well, but I really enjoyed listening to him talk and interact with guests.

I also remember thinking how cool it was that we'd pick up the signal at night, when (iirc) they boosted the power on the am frequency.

It's the opposite. AM radio signals carry much better at night, and (most?) stations cut power.

Some stations could boost; others had to cut power. This was IIRC an industry solution to the problem of there being only so much band available, and under such great propagation conditions in the evening you'd have multiple stations sitting on each 10 kHz step and interfering with one another.

I’d listen to him Friday and Saturday nights, lights out, with a 6-pack. Also biking into work at 4 AM on a quiet road.

I think the best episode was the one with Bob Lazar talking about Area 51, reversing engineering UFOs, and element 151.

What ever happened to Art’s Parts? He supposedly had materials of extraterrestrial origin.

Sad news. I remember listening to Art late nights in the mid 90s. Some.of my favorite topics: exorcist Malachi Martin, Mel's hole, and the guy who called in while "flying" over area 51 and was "shot down" on the air by a rail gun...

Rest in peace.

Sad day. Thanks Art. Thanks for great entertainment during long drives, late nights.

End of an era.

12-packs:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEX_Btnpd5GWYCOIXtFpb1g/vid...

As the sasquatch who did this is swept away in a flying saucer to an illumanati base on the moon let me just say i will miss that guy as well.

Art Bell also made episodes of his radio show appearing in Prey (2006).

Many fond memories of late nights listening to Art. He will be missed.

Is there an archive of his show that we can listen to?

YouTube has a fair amount. I’ve always suspected there were some big torrents around but dunno where. The raw recordings are the best, where he reads the news — all the issues feel so quaint compared to the awful stuff today.

Piratebay should have best of collections.

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